


Eyes glazed green

by Baryshnikov



Series: Spoiled Fruit [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Dom/sub Undertones, Jealous Tom Riddle, Jealousy, M/M, Possessive Tom Riddle, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:13:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23124559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: Tom is finally starting to understand the anatomy of jealousy.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Series: Spoiled Fruit [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616770
Comments: 5
Kudos: 206





	Eyes glazed green

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure this is rambling, unstructured and outright awful, so... yeah expect the worst.

Jealousy had always been an odd emotion for Tom to understand, it didn’t behave like other emotions; they were static, weak things that were easy to pick apart and discover the source of. But jealousy, that was a far more… active creature. One that was nebulous and shifting, unafraid to mutate just as he grasped its shape and colour, and not afraid to do so over and over again until he was frustrated both with it, and the way it exposed his weaknesses. 

But that being said, he’d been examining it _ever_ so closely recently. Actually letting it seep under his skin, and to slide into every blood vessel, in an attempt to work out exactly what components constituted its structure, and just how they engendered this particular weakness.

Thanks to those examinations, he’d managed to narrow it down now to three distinct components: aggravation, fault and hunger. Like that it was far simpler to understand why exactly it made his skin itch and made something inside him, that was not his heart, ache as though it were a grapefruit having its insides wrung out, until the segments were frayed and the peel was thoroughly bruised. 

Tom exhaled slowly and shifted in his seat but didn’t move, not yet. He had to do his waiting, and his watching for this to be enjoyable, for this was the punishment, as it were, before the thrill; a perfected form of self-torture that he only tolerated because the reward was so very sweet on his tongue. 

So, he stayed still, feeling the drag of the leather as it attached itself like a limpet to the sections of his skin that were exposed; the nape of his neck touching the lip of the chair, and front of his wrists pressing into the arms. Both were too hot given the tepid temperature of the room, and they were sticky and prickling with the sensation that he was recognising as the physical manifestation of jealousy. 

It worked its way inside of him, slithering and sliding like a snake on its belly, curling itself into his veins and upsetting the rhythm of his pulse and the functioning of all his other organs. When jealousy was in the air, his lungs were the first to detect it, for the air caught between the folds and stayed there clogging up the system until every breath was tight, and Tom couldn’t stop moving his fingers in anticipation.

Nervous twitching by any other name. 

He looked up across the room again. There were the throngs of people that one would expect at ministry functions, but Tom wasn’t concerned for them, rather his eye found whom it was looking for with a practised ease. Harry. He was currently standing by the wall on the other side of the room, and he was flocked with people because they all liked Harry, and they liked him in a different way to how they liked Tom. With Tom, their attraction came in the curious combination of awe and admiration, and so their affections were cold and remote, treating him as though he was something in a museum to be revered but never affected. 

But Harry – oh – he was so different. They gathered around him, not like a sheep to shepherd, but rather as people do around their friends. Harry inspired this warmth and comradeship in people, the sort of friendliness that had never come naturally to Tom, especially not to those people who were so painfully undeserving of it. 

He was contemptuous where Harry was considerate.

But regardless of their opinions on these people, seeing them all gathering around Harry, and touching, ever so casually, what wasn’t _theirs_ to touch, caused the first component of jealousy to bloom between his ribs: aggravation. It was an easy feeling to understand, that blossoming resentment both in his chest and between the folds of his brain that detested other people having the _audacity_ to think they had the right to touch someone as special as Harry. 

They were doing it now, right before his eyes. Though maybe their enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that people weren’t usually allowed to get so close to Harry, this was a mandated experiment and permissions had been granted. And thus, they were all taking advantage of that approved liberty like starving gannets setting upon a feast, their hands wandering voraciously over the exposed segments of Harry’s skin. Neither his hands nor his forearms were safe, and the bold ones even skimmed their fingers over his neck against his cheek. 

Tom shifted again, his jaw clenching despite himself, and his fingers tapping against the leather. Undoubtedly, for some of those people, their touches were innocent, the sort of contact initiated by people with no personal barriers; they were the ones that Tom was label as touchy-feely, and then did his absolute best to avoid them. He swallowed hard though and kept his gaze casual; the mere glance of someone looking for their partner in the crowd.

Though, had Harry seen that gaze, he would have known it wasn’t so innocent in its intention, nor was it as casual as it had seemed. He’d recognise the undertone that smouldered right in the centre: an agreement, a warning, and a promise all rolled into one neatly packaged look. And when Harry did finally catch that gaze, Tom forced a smile and tried to swallow down the next junction of jealousy. 

Fault; it was his least favourite. 

Tom himself had never seen the difficulty in navigating the moral chasm between right and wrong. Others seemed to agonise endlessly, only dipping their fingertips into the pools of moral destitution before recoiling in a mixture of fear, guilt, and shame; frankly, it was pitiful to watch. But what was perhaps more pitiful was that Tom wasn’t quite as immune from that nasty agonising as he’d like to have believed.

Despite his best intentions, there were still the silken threads of humanity stitching him together, and those threads seemed to tremble when something like jealousy slid itself so guilefully between his bones. It made him feel… inadequate, and it was _sickening_. But as much as he tried, Tom couldn’t shake that entrenched feeling of insufficiency that he felt when he saw someone else’s hand on Harry’s skin; like the saplings of a bramble, insidiously taking root in his veins, he felt the pricking sensation all over him that he wasn’t _enough_. 

That Harry had found himself someone more accomplished and more proficient and more…

Capable. 

Of course, that gave rise to jealousy’s third incarnate: hunger. Tom understood hunger better than any of the others, it was found in the dull throbbing in the base of his stomach, and the constant ache deep under his skin – that single need to _prove_ himself, or at least, prove his own claim to things he coveted.

Things like Harry. 

Someone was sidling up to him now, getting right into his personal space and _touching_ so deliberately. Fingers disguised by carelessness that wandered with calculated intention; touching Harry’s hand, and his arm, and his shoulder. Tom looked away. Instead, choosing to examine the floor and the shuffling of people’s shoes. 

People _touching_ always made his skin crawl.

Whether it was directly him they were touching or someone that he would call _his_ , Tom was not, and would never be, inclined to share what it was with liberal hands; they were careless and indelicate, and frankly, he didn’t like the feel of other people on Harry’s skin, let alone the taste. 

The same someone laughed, and their hand slid even higher, the fingers dipping under the back of Harry’s collar. Tom stood up and let his eyes meet Harry’s across the room. For a moment they stood there, their gazes each lingering and making the rest of the room melt away into a blur of colours and sounds and empty shapes. The moment was ruined by that hand wrapping itself tighter and pulling Harry closer to the body that it belonged to.

A couple of months ago, Tom might have reacted violently, or, at least, without due thought. These days he merely raised an eyebrow at Harry, before he turned and walked away; trying to ignore bellicose itch in his fingers. After all, if his experiments had taught him anything, it was that the best way to relieve jealousy was not through retribution towards the perpetrators. But rather, through positive reinforcement of the one subject to such attention.

Hence, if Harry followed him now, as he was supposed to, then he’d get an ever so pleasant reward.

**Author's Note:**

> The rating might go up to an explicit for the next chapter depending on how I'm feeling.


End file.
